Brief Encounter
by restive
Summary: They only meet once. And it all happens in his mind.


_Very random. Written for **Hogs' Team Battle**._

 _Hope you enjoy. :)_

* * *

Draco should have known it was a terrible idea. But he needs _some_ sort ofescape, or at least the feel of it. He gets tired of watching his father's discontented face as he sits in the drawing room, with a glass of firewhisky in his hand. He gets tired of his mother's exhausted smile as she keeps pretending everything is perfect in their household. It never was, and it never will. Draco knows it, his parents know it, everyone knows it, and the fact that mother picks up that performance not just in front of others but _all the time_ , gives him that pounding headache he used to get during the war.

Like something is wrong. Very wrong.

That headache always messes with the concept of time in his mind. Sometimes it feels like hours have gone by, but when he looks at the clock he realises it's only been a few minutes. The days become so monotonous and mundane, he forgets some of them. Not like there is much to remember anyway.

That decision comes to him in unusual circumstances, to say the least. The last thing he remembers is finishing the book he's been reading for a while now and heading to the library to put it in place, intending to go straight to bed after that.

Everyone in his family hates disorder.

As he comes up to the door and is about to turn the handle, that headache returns, and Draco almost folds himself in half in pain. It is stronger than it has ever been, and he wants to scream but stays quiet, clenching his jaw and palming his forehead with one hand, waiting for it to leave. He hasn't told anyone about these headaches because he knows what his parents will do. Mother will just look at him with those tired eyes and tell him to have some rest, and father will eye him with anger mixed with disappointment in his gaze and tell him to stop whining. That there are no weak Malfoys. Or something of the sort. (Draco just really wants to tell him that strong people don't lean on firewhisky quite as much. But her never will.)

So he gets up, turns the knob and opens the door. There is some sort of a blur in his mind, and then he sees his mother sitting at the dining room table. There is sunlight pouring in the windows.

"What are you doing?" he asks his mother, and for a moment her hand holding a fork freezes an inch away from her mouth. But only for a moment because she never lets herself be surprised.

"Eating my breakfast, Draco," she answers, not even looking up at him once.

And that moment is when he makes the decision. He really needs to do something or he _will_ go crazy.

* * *

Draco apparates, trying his best to think about some place in central London, as hard as that can be. He doesn't know why he chooses that particular area to find an escape. What does that word mean anyway? Getting some time alone? Because central London will not provide him with that. Change of the scenery? Yes, that would make sense.

He finds himself wanting to try and do something Muggles would do – as disgusting as that sounds (he just hopes his father never finds out about this – and he gathers all the knowledge he managed to collect in the lectures of Muggle Studies over the years he spent at Hogwarts. Going to the cinema he discards as a waste of time. Shopping would just be weird, and what does one buy himself in a world full of Muggles anyway? He entertains the idea of going to a museum or doing something like ice skating. Or maybe both.

That's what he thinks about as he apparates.

As he opens his eyes when he's there, he fights the urge to shut them again and go back, because of how bright everything is. It makes sense because it's Christmas soon, and every single tree as far as you sight can reach is decorated with glowing, sparkling, shimmering, and almost dancing lights. (When did it get dark again?) There is massive tree in the line of his sight: it's a Christmas tree, and it's so tall he can hardly see the top, and _of course_ it has ridiculous amounts of baubles, tinsel, toys, and lights hanging from it.

Draco blinks and suddenly finds himself standing on the edge of the rink, with his back pressed into the railings, his hands squeezed around it, his breathing hard, and he feels someone's hands on him. He ducks his head and notices that in fact those hands belong to a girl, and right now she is brushing snow off of his coat. She is crouching next to him, to get it off his trousers as well, and all he sees is the crown of her head, covered with what he guesses is a Santa hat.

"Here. As good as new."

The girls stands up, and he honestly tries not to stare at her but fails. He fights the urge of asking where he is, and looks around quickly, taking in the surroundings. He sees the rink, sees the tree again, and then there is the Natural History Museum. Draco remembers that this was where he was intending to end up, but the moment of apparition and arrival suddenly feel like a dream he had the day before: foggy, very unclear. He wonders how long he has been here.

He doesn't ask that question – he doesn't want to seem crazy, even if he honestly feels like he is. Instead, he takes a good look at her face because that girl is still standing there, staring at him.

Draco guesses she could be called pretty, but not in a conventional way of thinking. Her face is round, and she is not skinny. Nothing to the extent of Millicent, but still. Her hair is straight – not even a slight wave to it, and it's flows down her shoulders in what seems like an endless flow of red. Her lips are big, and her cupid's bow has a love heart shape to it. She looks flustered (and he guesses it's pretty cold so that does make sense), and her lips are so red he actually wonders if they would look any different if she were to wear a red lipstick.

"What happened?" he finds himself asking.

The girl lets out a sharp and unnecessarily loud laugh.

"You must have hit your head pretty hard," she smiles at him. "You wouldn't get out of the way, and that bloke," she turns and points a finger at a ridiculously large man with shoulders broad as a rock, a tiny blonde girl skating next to him, "bumped into you. I say you were lucky to survive that sort of catastrophe," she folds her arms and shifts her weight on one side. "You were actually standing there and staring at something, which was odd," she looks him up and down, and Draco frowns at that. "Are you okay?"

He thinks less about the question than about the sharp London accent she has. The sort of accent his parent remain convinced only Muggles and mudbloods share.

"What are you doing at the ice skating rink with no skates anyway?" she asks, without letting him answer her previous question. "Can you skate?"

Draco suddenly realises she is one of those people who prefer talking over listening. And for some reason, it doesn't irritate him.

 _Yet_.

He finds it in himself to shake his head, and that seems like enough of an answer to her. She takes his hand, her touch feeling so light as if she is almost not there, and as Draco looks down he fights a frown. She has knitted gloves on with the fingers cut off, revealing an acid bright pink nails. Who is their sane mind would paint their nails with a colour like that?

"Come on, I'll teach you. Let's get you some skates," she says with such enthusiasm that Draco furrows his brows.

"You don't know me," he says as she keeps pulling him.

"So what?" she shrugs as if he just asked her about weather. "It's Christmas, and you can't be that bad."

And he doesn't find any morale to argue with her.

* * *

The memories of what happens next grind together and remain in one big blur.

A very bright blur, the kind of blur that makes him feel all warm and soft and fuzzy inside. _Weird_ , basically. Anything but normal.

He remembers people giving him odd looks, probably because of his utter inability to skate.

He remembers her laughing non-stop. Remembers her asking if he is rich (which is a completely inappropriate topic to talk about to someone you hardly know at all), and him saying that yes, he is in fact rich. And then, he remembers asking if she wants to look at Malfoy Manor, which she agrees to with a delighted squeal. He has no idea why he does it. Maybe he just wants to hold on to that inexplicable euphoria and safety that reside in his chest while their fingers touch. That feeling, telling him he is capable of anything. That feeling that while she is there, with him, even the manor will seem less cold and lonely.

They apparate (well, _he_ apparates, and she just holds his hand) and they end up in the ground floor corridor. They storm into the dining room and see his mother with a fork in her hand. The sun shines through the windows so brightly he almost flinches.

"Who are you talking to, Draco?" she asks, and he wants to laugh at that but suddenly stops feeling the girl's hand in his at all. He whips his head to see empty space where she's been standing two seconds ago, and that makes blood boil in his veins.

There is that pause in the time continuum again, and then he opens his eyes to see his mother's face up close to him as he is pressing a wand to her throat, words, "What did you do to her?", pushing through his pursed lips.

There is father shouting "She was never there, Draco!", then his mother's crying, and everything else melds together after that. He can't remember a single thing clearly.

Just endless darkness.


End file.
